A Brush With Death

English/16mins/2002
Producer: Syed Fayaz, RGB Films
Commissioned by: Wildlife Trust of India

Subject Focus: Barbaric killings of mongoose for trade.

Summary: The common mongoose is a fairly widespread species and placed fairly low in the hierarchy of protected animals in India and is listed under schedule IV of the Wildlife Protection Act. It has always been considered a friend of the farmer. Though occasionally known to prey on poultry, it offsets such damage by hunting the farmer’s enemies — rats, mice and snakes. The mongoose is not a creature of forests. It is found in the open lands, scrub forests and cultivated lands. It lives in the thickets, groves of trees and fields or in burrows in the ground. This film also documents illegal procurement and sale of mongoose hair on which thrives the paint brush-making industry. As a result of which the mongoose is brutally killed and is on the brink of being declared extinct. Yet it is placed fairly low in the hierarchy of protected animals in India being listed in the Schedule IV of the Wild Life Protection Act.

Producer’s/Director’s Profile: Syed Fayaz has worked as a Freelancer from October 2000 till date. Had directed and produced a short film named A Ray of Hope on children in Jammu and Kashmir for Rajiv Gandhi Foundation/UNICEF, New Delhi. He is currently working as a line producer for the Ultimate Machine Combat from India to be televised on Discovery Channel and Channel 4 (United Kingdom). He has earlier worked as a Reporter in Sahara India Television, New Delhi and has provided research for possibly first ever single shot film As the River Flows, shot on steady-cam JR. The film was screened in Mumbai International Video Festival. Syed Fayaz has received British Chevening Scholarship Broadcast Journalist 2000.